Consummate wiseguy, documentarian of working people, and "vaguely anonymous human" Dont Fret is one of Chicago's most visible street artists, best known for his wheat-pasted characters and snarky musings that populate city streets worldwide. Simultaneously sardonic, biting, and fond, the bluntness of his figures and texts—often "belonging" to the neighborhood they inhabit—skewers the obvious and reflects the normalized-until-numbed issues of the city back at the passerby experiencing them firsthand. While his work has stretched from São Paulo to Helsinki, he remains a true Wicker Park native, digging into the character(s) of Chicago—the stew of down-and-out and up-and-up, the meatpackers, the artists, the street-wise, and the stupid.
The first comprehensive survey of Dont Fret's work/life thus far, this monograph showcases a decade of his street and gallery work and features memories and anecdotes from fellow artists and friends, as well as a foreword by writer and Brooklyn Street Art co-founder Steven P. Harrington.